Last week Google launched its new Google Local search in the UK, this week the search megalith announced that it has another idea, CPM (cost per impression) advertising for its adsense program.

The introduction of CPM advertising will completely alter the way the Adsense programme works. Currently Google displays Adsense Ads on sites that its contextual tool judges to be relevant in theme to the Ad.

For one thing, the CPM model has the potential to reduce click fraud, and that will be very popular with advertisers. More profoundly though, Google will now allow advertisers to specify which sites their ads appear on. This will mean that advertisers can choose to appear only on sites that give them the best conversion rates, but it will also allow for brand advertising. Even if certain sites do not provide conversions, advertisers can grow their brand by careful selection of where their ads appear.

Let me add another word on the introduction of Google Local we featured last week. Our SEO friend, (Big) Bill Kruse has been looking into this a bit further and he has told us that Google seems to be simply replicating Yell’s listings. This means that Google has moved away from the accuracy of search based on on page content to simply
a paid inclusion model for sites that have forked out £299 plus VAT for a Yell.com priority listing. Bill has posted a sequence of pages covering his very interesting discussion with Yell here:

http://www.kruse.co.uk/google-local-1.htm




*SEARCH ENGINE WORKSHOPS*

Search Engine Workshops has now uploaded the agenda for the ClickTracks Training Events on 7th June and 20th July. See the agenda @

http://www.searchengineworkshops.co.uk/click.htm

It's filling up fast, and numbers are extremely limited so don't forget to register here:

http://www.searchengineworkshops.co.uk/registration.htm

Search Engine Workshops Ltd has teamed up with ClickTracks, the web analytics software company of California USA to deliver Training Events in the UK. The first event will be in London on June 7th.

Aimed at marketing personnel and webmasters who need to understand the behaviour of visitors to their websites, the new Training Events will focus strongly on how to use web analytics data in order to improve the performance of websites, rather than the technical niceties of the subject.

Online advertising budgets are rising steeply and show every indication of continuing to do so for the foreseeable future. The ability of web analytics to measure which campaigns and strategies are working is a marketing tool the offline world can only dream about. Those companies that are already using web analytics have seen the guesswork go out of online marketing and are benefiting from a serious competitive edge over those who shy away from what is sometimes perceived as a difficult subject.

ClickTracks training events will be presented by Marie Coggin and Sally Kavanagh who have considerable experience in promoting websites and tracking their performance. They also present the UK Search Engine Workshops in partnership with Search Engine Workshops in the United States.

ClickTracks is an extremely user friendly package and the Search Engine Workshops ClickTracks training events are designed to ensure that every webmaster has the opportunity to get the most out of this powerful tool – with minimum effort.

Further details of the Search Engine Workshops ClickTracks training events are available at www.searchengineworkshops.co.uk


Further details of ClickTracks web analytics software is available from www.ClickTracks.com

Big Bill, an SEO friend of ours, has spotted as of yesterday that Google Local has launched in the UK and it appears that the listings are coming, in some part,from www.yell.com. If you go to www.google.co.uk, you will see the link ‘Try Google Local’ where you can search by entering your desired business category into the ‘What’ field and your town name or postcode in the ‘Where’field. Relevant local business listings, together with a map of their location,will appear on the page.

Alternatively, you can access Google Local search results by entering a town name or postcode along with your search terms. Relevant local business listings will appear at the top of the page next to a Google Local compass icon. For instance, if you type ‘restaurants w1’ (quotes unnecessary) Google will return listings of restaurants in the London, W1 area.

How relevant are these listings currently? Well, we could debate the relevancy of McDonalds being listed under ‘restaurants w1’ but we won’t chance the lawsuit ;-) However, Big Bill is not too convinced as he’s been listed at No 2 in Google for SEO UK for yonks and yet doesn’t show up in Google Local for SEO even under his own postcode. He suggests they might be having rather serious teething trouble and that perhaps we ought to call it Google Distant!

Time will tell!

Thanks Big Bill - http://www.kruse.co.uk